


What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

by bookishandbossy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, New Year's Eve, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5657410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Leo Fitz loses a bet, he has to make all his decisions for the next week based on a coin toss.  Heads is yes, tails is no.  And when Jemma Simmons asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend for a New Year's Eve party, it comes up heads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruthedotcom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthedotcom/gifts).



> A very belated happy birthday to the marvelous Ruth!

It all starts because Fitz loses a bet. Or maybe it starts because he makes the bet in the first place, or because he doesn't have a head for gin, or because he's twenty-seven and theoretically has all he wants but can't shake the feeling that there's still something he's missed. Because he has the degree and the job and the New York City apartment and for a moment, he almost had the girl and none of the pieces ever quite clicked together even when he had all of them. 

The bet itself is stupid but what happens because of it is not. 

He swears to make every decision for the next week, big and small, based on a coin toss. (Drunk Fitz doesn't think about what would happen if he has more than two options.) Of course, he never has a quarter in his wallet. So he designs an app instead, a simple program that takes him less than two hours, and every time he has to make a decision, he presses a button on his phone and a coin comes up heads or tails. Heads is yes, tails is no. And when Jemma Simmons asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend on New Year's Eve, it comes up heads.

She's been the SHIELD liaision for Stark Industries for a few months now, so he's gotten used to seeing her around in the hallways, ever-present thermos of tea clutched in one hand and overflowing file folder in the other. They nod hello when they see each other and they've had a few fascinating discussions on recent scientific discoveries, even if they're cut off most of the time by a summons from Tony, and so Fitz would say that they're friendly acquaintances at best. Yes, he thinks she's gorgeous but he thinks it in sort of a casual way. Whenever he sees her, he's struck by it all over again—the curve of her smile, the fall of her hair over her shoulders—and then he forgets all about it until the next time he sees her (out of self-preservation, he suspects in his wiser moments). Jemma Simmons is always surprising him and she surprises him most of all when she corners him in a hallway half an hour before they're supposed to get off work.

“You could look hot, right?” she says, giving him an appraising glance. “You have the accent and the scruff thing going on and you might work if I put you in a suit—do you have a nice suit?”

“Of course I do,” Fitz says automatically, slightly offended (Pepper hasn't taken him shopping on six separate occasions for nothing) and slightly puzzled. “What do you need me in a suit for?”

“To pretend to be my gorgeous new boyfriend and make my absolute wanker of an ex-boyfriend eat his heart out with jealousy over what he'll never be able to have again, of course,” Jemma says, as matter-of-factly as if she's giving the weather report. “And to stop all the Smug Marrieds from asking me if I'm seeing anyone and trying to set me up with their cousin's best friend's coworker from Ohio.”

“You've gone all Bridget Jones, haven't you?” Fitz asks and eyes her suspiciously. She's got a bit of a mad gleam in her eyes and her hair, which is usually straight and tucked neatly behind her ears, is curly and spilling loose around her face. He has the sinking feeling that she and Jane Foster might have had a boozy late lunch, the kind that usually end with groundbreaking scientific discoveries, very bad ideas, or both. 

“You know Bridget Jones?” She blinks at him for a moment, then refocuses and grabs him firmly by both hands. “I knew you'd be perfect.”

“You still haven't officially asked me anything yet,” Fitz points out.

“Right then. Leo Fitz?” Jemma clasps both of his hands in hers and bats her eyelashes at him. “Would you please pretend to be madly in love with me for a night? Just until the new year?”

He says yes. Fate, in the form of one ill thought out bet, told him to.

 

Daisy thinks it's a great idea. But then Daisy also thought using her powers to make margaritas instead of buying a new blender was a great idea. (Her kitchen smelled like tequila for days.) She and May and Maria Hill and, most terrifying of all, Natasha Romanoff are all grinning at him like a bunch of proud mothers. “You have a date for New Year's,” Daisy says and tilts her glass towards him in a toast. “You should probably shave.”

“I think he should keep it,” Maria Hill says and tilts her head to the side to examine him. “It makes him look rugged.”

“But is rugged right for the mission?” May asks lightly.

“'s not a mission,” Fitz grumbles. “Just a party.”

“He keeps the stubble,” Natasha says and that's that. Everyone does what Natasha tells them to, probably because no one wants to find out what would happen if they didn't. And, staring at his reflection in the mirror, twenty minutes before he's supposed to pick Jemma up, Fitz is forced to acknowledge that she was right. The stubble makes him look a bit less...round-faced. He did a few surreptitious searches on Jemma's ex-boyfriend before getting dressed and the ex has at least six inches and forty pounds on him. If there's going to be any kind of dramatic showdown, which seems to happen a lot in all the New Year's Eve party teen movies he's watched, he doesn't stand a chance. Maybe he could bring one of the prototypes he's been working on along with him? It would probably ruin the lines of his suit, though, and Pepper would never forgive him for that. So Fitz sighs, does up the last button of his gray suit jacket, and heads out into the night to pick up Jemma at her building.

She steps out of the elevator in her building's lobby, calling a hello to Fitz, and she's...well, if the way Jemma looks normally makes him struggle to remember how to breathe, the way she looks tonight takes all the breath out of him like he's been hit by a runaway freight train. She's wearing a long, clingy silver dress with beading that looks straight out of the 1920's and her hair's falling loose in curls around her face and Fitz doesn't even care that she's probably taller than him in those heels. It isn't until she politely clears her throat that he realizes he's been staring for a good five minutes.

“You, uh,” he clears his throat, unnecessarily. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you!” Jemma beams at him. “You look quite sharp yourself. Shall we?” She crosses over to slip her hand through his and leans up to plant a kiss on his cheek. 

“Oh. We're...starting now? The pretending?” Fitz asks. He's pretty sure he's not supposed to be this flustered.

“Think of it as a warm-up before the main event. We're going to have to convince an entire room full of people that we're madly in love,” Jemma says brightly. “I've prepared a dossier for both of us if you'd like to review it during the cab ride: how we met, typical couple activities, details of our sex life--”  
“That won't be necessary,” Fitz blurts out. “I can improvise. Promise.”

“Are you sure?” Jemma asks. “Because we could go through just a few key details before we get there. Tell me what your favorite color is.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Fitz demands. Right now his favorite color is the same shade of honey brown as her eyes, but there's no way Fitz is going to tell her that.

“Fine then. Favorite food?”

“Chips. Not with fish,” he adds quickly. “What's yours?”

“Kale,” Jemma says sweetly. She's got to be lying. “Especially in smoothies.”

“So if anyone offers you a drink, I should tell them that there's got to be kale in it. Got it.” Fitz nods mock-seriously and she actually giggles. The sound is intoxicating and Fitz is already running through all the jokes he knows in his head, trying to calculate what might make her laugh again. He knows that she only asked him here because she wants to one-up her ex-boyfriend and that the odds of something going horribly, disastrously wrong are higher than he'd like, but he still wants to make this night fun for her. He remembers hearing Jemma tell Bobbi Morse that New Year's was one of her favorite holidays and at the very least, he can make sure that she's well supplied with drinks.

“Should I call you Leo now? Since we're dating for the night?” Jemma asks once she's gotten over her giggles. There's a mischievous glint lurking in her eyes that makes him think she already knows the answer.

“Christ, no,” Fitz says with a shudder. “And no awful pet names either.”

“Duly noted,” Jemma says and gives him a determined little nod. Then the cab pulls up in front of a towering apartment building and she leans over to take his hand in hers again, weaving her fingers through his and squeezing tight. She can't be nervous, can she? Fitz squeezes back anyway. 

They take the elevator all the way up to the top floor and emerge into a heaving mass of people, most of them wearing something sparkly and all of them with drink glasses in their hands. Jemma hesitates on the doorstep and for the first time that Fitz has known her, she looks unsure. “I didn't think there'd be this many people,” she whispers. “And I know all of them.”

“Want to introduce me to some of them? I'm a socially awkward engineer, after all,” Fitz says cheerfully, hoping to get another laugh out of her and shore up her courage. “Take pity on me.”

“I thought Pepper was always dragging you to parties.” She glances up at him through her eyelashes, twisting a curl around one finger. From a distance, it could almost like they're flirting. “Trying to set you up with all kinds of pretty agents and award-winning physicists.”

“I prefer biochemists, actually.” He gets a full-blown Jemma smile at that and so he uses his grip on her hand to tug her a little more into the room. “I believe that this is the part where you get to show me off.”

“Obviously. I hope you came prepared with stories about your most impressive inventions,” she says and tosses her hair over one shoulder. She's still smiling as she guides him through the crowd and over to where a slender blonde woman is holding court by the piano.

“Jemma!” The woman throws her arms around Jemma with a delighted smile and that's when Fitz realizes who she is. Sharon Carter, SHIELD agent, Peggy Carter's niece, Natasha Romanoff's favorite workout partner, and, most important of all, one of the most likely people to see right through them.

“It's wonderful to see you,” Jemma says warmly. “We have to catch up sometime soon, when you're not out on a mission. I found a new breakfast place in Brooklyn that I think you'd love.”

“Of course. I'll be around for most of January—Nick owes me at least a month of vacation,” Sharon says, stepping back and catching sight of Fitz for the first time. She quirks one eyebrow at Jemma, mouth curving up in a self-satisfied smile, and Fitz isn't surprised that she knows exactly who he is. “Oh Jemma, you _didn't_. Now Sam owes me thirty bucks.”

“You made another bet on my dating life, didn't you? They do this all the time and think I don't know about it,” Jemma explains to Fitz. “And then they try and set me up with people so they can win the bet. The moral of the story is, never trust a bunch of super spies with the details of your dating life.”

“Pepper told us all about you and I thought you'd be perfect for Jemma. Sam thought she'd go for another hulking type, but I had a good feeling about you. Looks like I was right.” Sharon smiles at him and Fitz isn't sure whether it's meant to be welcoming or terrifying. “Tell me how you and Jemma met.”

“It was right before a scheduled R &D meeting. She spilled her tea all over me and I didn't even mind because I was too busy listening to her explain that she'd been going too fast because she'd just had a brilliant idea for a new medical application for neurotoxins. I couldn't stop looking at her either, but that was, ah...I don't want to make it sound like the way she looks is the most important thing about her,” Fitz blurts out. “She insisted on buying me a coffee to apologize afterward and we just kept on talking from there and it was brilliant. Just brilliant, all of it. I'm very lucky.”

At his side, Jemma's beaming and Fitz is pleasantly surprised with himself. Pepper's tried to train him in the fine art of corporate negotiation and he's not half-bad at making things up on the fly, especially if they have circuits or gears, but he's never improvised quite like this before. Then again, most of what he just said is true. He did meet Jemma just before a R&D meeting and she did spill her tea on him and offer to buy him something afterward as an apology. They just never got the chance because there was some kind of crisis with Doctor Banner and the Iron Man suit in the lab.

“Can I get either of you a drink?” Fitz asks before Jemma can realize how close his fictionalized version of events is to the truth. Because yes, he thinks she's beautiful and brilliant and sometimes, late at night when he admits things to herself that he promptly forgets in the morning, he thinks that he'd like to find out what it'd be like to be something more than friendly. But he doesn't expect anything from her and he doesn't want her to think that he does. 

“I'll have a Cosmo,” Jemma says. “And Sharon'll have one of those weird craft beers she's always drinking. Thanks, Fitz.” Then she leans in and kisses him, just a quick brush of her lips against his, her hand resting on his shoulder for a moment after she pulls away. She smiles at him again and Fitz is almost too dazed to smile back.

“I hope that was all right,” Jemma says nervously, after they've reluctantly left Sharon and ventured out into the rest of the party. “I just...I felt like that was the sort of thing that I would do if I was really dating you and I wanted to make sure that Sharon was completely convinced and you do look very handsome tonight, so logically it makes sense that I would want to kiss you. If we were dating, I mean.”

“Completely fine. Just give me some warning next time, yeah?” Fitz loops an arm around her waist and feels Jemma lean into his side. She's had a few drinks by now and she's a little unsteady in her heels and besides, he's pretty sure it makes them look much more convincing as a couple. They've still got what seems like an entire football league's worth of Jemma's friends to go through and Fitz thinks that he'll need more to eat than a bunch of veggies and dip and the remains of the cheese platter to make it through.

“Can we order pizza?” he whispers in her ear, after they've spent a good ten minutes talking to not one, but three married couples who form a front of smug domesticity and tell Jemma all about their difficulties finding the right lamp at Pottery Barn. “I'm starving.”

“As long as it's white pizza,” she replies and nods intelligently when someone makes a remark about lampshades. “I don't eat regular pizza when I drink. I have a whole scientific theory about it.”

“Heathen,” Fitz grumbles. He orders the pizza anyway and while they wait for it to arrive, they work their way through more of Jemma's friends. As it turns out, they make a good team. She has a way of anticipating what he's going to say before he even says it and the ends of his sentences dovetail nicely with the beginnings of hers. Their jokes and their ideas complement each other and after a while, his arm around her waist and his hand in hers begin to feel natural. It's easy being with her, dangerously easy. Because with every inside joke that they exchange, every different variation on her smile that he spots, every time he so much as looks at her, it becomes easier and easier to imagine what it would be like if this was all real.

It's almost midnight when they run into her ex-boyfriend, a muscle-bound guy from Ops who's wearing too-tight pants and has a pair of black sunglasses shoved back on his head. “Jemmie,” he says, towering over both of them. “You're...you look good.” He says it like it's a surprise and Fitz has to fight back the urge to punch him.

“Thanks,” Jemma says crisply. “You know Leo Fitz, right? Head of Research and Development over at Stark Industries?”

“You're really dating him?” the ex says and actually guffaws. Fitz decides that maybe he'll set whatever new disaster device Tony comes up with this week on the ex instead of punching him. Much more efficient. “Not really your usual type, is he? He's so...small.”

Fitz opens his mouth to protest that actually his height is quite average but Jemma gets there first.

“He's got a bigger brain and a better heart than you ever will. Besides, size isn't everything,” Jemma adds, wicked smile stealing across her face. “I mean, I've never had to fake it with him. Not once.”  
Fitz pulls her away before she can go into more detail on their made-up sex life, but he can see the ex looking positively gobsmacked behind them and he thinks that Jemma will have to be satisfied with that. “You know, I don't think I would have to fake it with you,” Jemma says thoughtfully when they're safely away on the other side of the room. “You seem like you'd be very considerate and you've got nice hands too. Are you good with your hands, Fitz?”

He's spared from answering by the sudden appearance of the pizza delivery guy and by the time he's settled both of them in a corner with the pizza, he hopes that Jemma will be too distracted by the food to remember that he never answered her question. She's not. After devouring a slice and a half of pizza, she looks up at him and reminds him that he never answered her question.

“I'm good at building things with them,” he says firmly. “No comment on any other usages.”

“But I need to know it for the dossier!” she protests, laughing.

“Nope, that's all off the record. Why do you want to know anyway?” he grumbles. 

“Maybe I'm just curious. There's...there's a lot I don't know about you, Fitz, and I'd like to learn. Whenever we talk, I want to keep on talking for hours and hours and I—that's one of the reasons I asked you to do this,” she admits, turning to look at him hopefully. “I wanted to see what it might be like to date you for a night. I mean, I wasn't even expecting you to say yes.”

“I flipped a coin,” Fitz says. “I lost a bet and I had to flip a coin to make every decision for a week and I—I would have wanted to say yes, without the bet, but I don't know if I would have had the courage to. I wanted to get coffee with you that first day too, but someone had to stop Dr. Banner from going all green on the lab.”

“You could have rescheduled, if you really wanted to.”

“I did. Of course I did. I just didn't know how to say it.” Fitz knots his hands together in his lap and gives her a rueful smile. “I'm not very good at this, you can probably tell.”

“You were good at it tonight. Very good.” Jemma pauses for a minute and rearranges her dress in her lap, fingers skimming anxiously over the beading. “You know, it's almost midnight. We could and it could, um, count.”

“Count?” They're a minute away from the new year and a few over-enthusiastic people have started counting down already, but to Fitz everything else sounds like it's a million miles away.

“It could be for real.”

And it is. Kissing her feels like the most real thing Fitz has ever done. She's warm and soft and endlessly responsive in his arms, pulling him as close as she can with one hand and firmly burying the other in his curls, and she tastes like wine and promises, and she's enough to make his head spin. It's falling and being caught and never wanting any of it to stop and for a moment, Fitz wonders exactly how long he's been falling for her. Then she kisses him again and he forgets how to wonder at all.

And when the clock shows 12:01, he keeps on kissing Jemma Simmons right into the new year.


End file.
